Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  He told himself that of Jehovah and His words he did not expect peace. “Before Jehovah our God there can be neither slumber nor sleep,” he told David. “We are a restless people, O my son! It is our destiny to keep the world restless until all know who is Jehovah, the One True God. We are sojourners, transient between earth and heaven.” He paused and then lifted his head high and held up his clenched hands above his head. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

  The sonorous familiar words of the Shema rolling from the lips of the blind old man haunted David’s soul. He himself was often divided between heaven and earth, and his soul was rent in two. It was impossible to answer the Rabbi. He could only listen, and listening receive into himself the meaning of the faith of his people. He was beginning to understand it now. What his mother expressed in her own practical way in her careful observance of feast days and worship days, in rites and rituals, in her refusal to accept the Chinese name of Chao even in this community where nearly all the Jews were known also by Chinese names—all this was the outward manifestation of the burning spirit of the Rabbi. These two believed that their people were a special people, set apart by God, to fulfill a destiny in the world. To their people, his mother and the Rabbi believed, God had entrusted a mission, the sacred mission of persecuting the souls of human beings until they turned to God.

  Now the conflict among the three, David, Leah, and Aaron, came about thus. As the Rabbi perceived that David grew in understanding, unwittingly he put aside Aaron, his own son. At first he had asked each morning if Aaron were in the room, but now he asked no more. When David entered he turned only to him, and he put out his hands, restless and trembling, until he felt for himself the clasp of David’s hands and until he felt his head and cheeks and brow. He must always have David sit near enough for him to touch. Aaron grew sullen as he perceived himself forgotten, and since he dared not complain to his father, he vented his temper on Leah.

  “You are plotting against me,” he declared when they were alone. “It is your plan to put up David as the rabbi instead of me, when our father dies, and he will be the head of our people. But you will be the true head, for you will rule David as that old she-Ezra rules Ezra.”

  Leah was so soft at heart, so purely good, that she could not answer this wickedness from her brother. When even as their father taught them the Torah Aaron silently mouthed his charges at her, her great eyes filled with tears, and still she did not speak. Aaron took care, or thought he did, to hide his persecution, but David was too shrewd not to see it. He loathed Aaron and paid no more heed to him than he would to a cur in the house. When Aaron came fawning on him and wheedling to go with him among his friends and share his pleasures, David pretended not to hear him or know his meaning. Aaron shrank back rebuffed, and with all the strength of his human nature he hated David for his pride and for the air of freedom in which David walked.

  When David saw, now, that Aaron was oppressing his sister in some secret way, he stopped Leah one morning as they met near the threshold, and he said, “When Aaron makes his silly faces at you, why do you weep?”

  “Because I know what he is thinking,” Leah replied.

  They stood in the sunlight, and David saw how smooth was her rich-colored skin, and how her dark hair gleamed. He had never renewed the signs of love since the day in the peach garden, for his soul had been more confused every day since. Her warm and loving eyes now upon him increased his confusion, and he could only stammer, “What is Aaron thinking?”

  “I am ashamed to tell you,” Leah said honestly.

  Now had David been clear in his soul he would have demanded her meaning, but he was afraid to press her lest she tell him that Aaron was teasing her about love.

  “Aaron is a fool,” he said abruptly.

  At this moment Aaron lounged through the gate, and David went in, and Leah followed.

  Even Leah the Rabbi forgot. Every morning she came in quietly, and if the Rabbi did not hear her she gave greeting to him, and he answered as if he scarcely heard. Indeed, the Rabbi thought only of David. He spent the hours of the night in prayer and he woke from brief sleep feverish with eagerness. He told himself that he could not sleep until David declared himself for the Lord. He longed and yet he did not dare put to David the direct question. Yet after the two and three hours of expounding the Torah the question hung on his very beard: “David, will you be rabbi after me? Hear the word of the Lord, O my son David!” He could hear himself bidding his own son and daughter leave him in order that he might speak to David, and yet he determined that he would not speak until he heard the command of God ringing in his ears.

  There came a day in late summer when it seemed to the Rabbi that until this command came he could not go on. It was in the eighth month, the month of storms, and the morning was still and hot. The air was heavy and it weighed upon the blind man with the wet heaviness of a fog. He was exceedingly restless. His old bones quivered and his blood ran through his veins with such speed that he felt giddy.

  David came early that morning and alone. Leah had sent word that she was ill and Aaron sent no message but he did not come. The Rabbi, alone with David, felt his heart tremble. Was not this the day? He began to expound the book with care and tenderness, pressing near the young man in his zeal. David too was restless with the heat, and he could not bear the smell of age and decay that clung to the old man. As the lesson went on the Rabbi heard him rise and move about and sigh, and he grew frightened. Why did the Lord not speak? He lifted his head to listen, but the very air was silent. In his fear he made a mighty effort for calm.

  “My son,” the Rabbi said, when he felt David did not hear him, “let us go into the house of the Lord. The day is strangely hot, but in the shadows of the synagogue the air will be cool.”

  “As you wish, Father,” David replied.

  “Let me put my hand upon your arm,” the Rabbi said. “We will go on foot.”

  The synagogue was not far. The houses of the Jews were clustered about it, and they had only to walk along a few streets to come to the narrow one that the Chinese called the Street of the Plucked Sinew. The path was familiar enough to David, and so was the synagogue, and yet he felt strangely that this was the first time he had ever entered it. Until now it had been a temple that he had often entered reluctantly, torn from play at the command of his mother. Now he came of his own free will—yes, it was his will today to meet God face to face. He had been putting off decision, but it must be no longer delayed. Slowly he paced his step to match the long slow step of the Rabbi. If he felt today the call of Jehovah, choosing him, commanding him to restore the remnant of his people, he would answer firmly yea or nay, out of what his heart said when he heard the Voice.

  “You have put on your cap?” the Rabbi murmured.

  “Yes,” David replied. “I put it on when I come to you each morning.”

  “I know,” the Rabbi said. “Why did I ask? You are faithful to the commands of the Lord.”

  Nevertheless he reached up his hand and touched the blue cap on David’s head.

  “You doubt me?” David asked, smiling.

  “No, no,” the Rabbi said quickly.

  They entered now the gate to the outer courts of the synagogue. When the Rabbi came here alone, he went at once into the inner courts at the back of the compound, near which his own small house stood, but today he wanted to lead David through the wide front gate, which was opened to them by an old man who belonged to the Jewish clan of Ai. The gate faced the east, and immediately inside was a great and beautiful archway. Beyond it was still another gateway and beyond this another archway. On either side stood two stone tablets, each upon a stone base carved in lotus leaves, and upon the tablets were cut in ancient letters the story of the Jews and how they had been driven from their land. Beyond the tablet was the immense platform upon which the great tent was raised at the Feast of Tabernacles, and still beyond was the Ark Bethel in the most sacred and inner part of the synagogue.

  Al
l of this David knew, and yet this day he looked with eyes that saw for the first time the meaning of this place, set for a palace of God in the crowded heathen city and its many temples to other gods. The air was cooler here than elsewhere, and he felt it cool upon his flesh. Olive trees lined the courts, and the silence was sweet. The place was empty of man but it was filled with the high spirit of Heaven. Upon a tablet over the main arch were carved these words, “The Temple of Purity and Peace.” Such indeed it was.

  So they went slowly step by step, the Rabbi murmuring the Scriptures until David paused before a great stone tablet.

  “How is it that the letters I see carved upon many of these stone tablets are Chinese letters and not Hebrew?” David asked suddenly.

  The Rabbi sighed. “Alas, our people have forgotten the language of our fathers! When I die, there will not be one left who can read the word of the Lord.”

  He paused, waiting for David to speak, to offer himself. The Rabbi had hoped each day that David would ask to learn the Hebrew language, but he had not asked and he did not now.

  “Yet the story of our people is very plain upon this stone,” David said instead. And he began to read aloud the Chinese letters:

  “Abraham, the patriarch who founded the religion of Israel, was of the nineteenth generation from P’anku Adam.”

  “You see,” the Rabbi broke in. “P’anku is the Chinese first man. Yet even those who carved these tablets put his name with Adam.” David smiled and read on:

  “From the creation of Heaven and earth the patriarchs handed down the tradition that they received. They made no image, flattered no spirits and ghosts, and believed in no superstitions. Instead they believed that spirits and ghosts cannot help men, that idols cannot protect them, and that superstitions are useless. So Abraham meditated only upon Heaven.”

  David’s strong young voice fell silent. But to meditate upon Heaven was what his Chinese tutor also taught him! For some weeks now he had not gone to the Confucian, but the last time he had gone was on the midsummer feast night. The sky had been full of stars, and the old man had lifted his face to them.

  “We can meditate upon Heaven,” he had murmured, “but we cannot know it.”

  “The synagogue has twice been swept away by flood from the Yellow River,” the old rabbi said, not knowing David’s thoughts. “Yet these great stones have been preserved. Our God does not allow the name of His people to perish.”

  They walked on slowly. The sky had darkened, and looking up, David saw hovering above the walls black clouds edged with silver.

  “It will rain and then the air will be cooler everywhere,” he answered.

  The Rabbi paid no heed. “Come with me into the Holy of Holies,” he said with solemn excitement. “I want to put the Torah into your hands, my son.”

  They stepped over the high threshold and into the dim innermost chamber of the synagogue, and crossing the smooth tiles of the floors, they went toward the Ark. Before it stood a table, and above it was an archway, made in three parts, upon which was written:

  Blessed be the Lord,

  The God of Gods, the Lord of Lords,

  The Great, the Mighty and Terrible God.

  These words the Rabbi spoke aloud in a deep voice, and suddenly, like an echo from heaven, thunder rolled through the synagogue. The Rabbi stood still, lifting his face until his beard was thrust high. Then in the silence after the thunder he parted the curtains, and David saw the cases that held the Torah. They were gilt-lacquered, and the hinges were gilded, and there was a flame-shaped knob on each cover.

  “These are the sacred books of Moses,” the Rabbi said in his grave voice, “and there are twelve, one for each of the tribes of our people, and the thirteenth is for Moses.”

  So saying, he opened the thirteenth box, which like the others was in the shape of a long cylinder, and he set it upon a high carved chair, which was the Chair of Moses. Then he opened the cylinder and he took out the book.

  “Put out your hands,” he commanded David.

  David put them out and the Rabbi placed upon them the ancient book, shaped like a roll of thick paper.

  “Open it,” he commanded, and David opened it.

  “Can you read it?” the Rabbi asked.

  “No,” David said. “You know the letters are Hebrew.”

  “I will teach them to you,” the Rabbi declared. “To you, my true son, I will teach the mysteries of the tongue in which God gave the law to Moses, our ancestor, who carried the law down from the mountain to our people, who waited in the valley.”

  The thunder was rolling again around the synagogue and the Rabbi bowed his head. When there was silence he spoke on. “It is you who will speak to our people in the words of the law, a second Moses, O my son.”

  Then lifting his head and raising his hands high above it, the Rabbi cried out words that were used by the people when they worshiped in the synagogue.

  “Hear ye, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

  His great voice drew out the solemn word One into a long wail, and again the thunder roared.

  Who can say how this thunder, echoing the Rabbi’s voice, might have sealed the soul of David, the son of Ezra? But even as his soul trembled, even as he waited for the still small voice of God to come out of the storm, his eyes fell upon an inscription carved into a little tablet. There were many such inscriptions set into tablets, the gifts of Jews who had wished through hundreds of years to leave something of themselves in the synagogue. This tablet was less than any other, a dusty bit of marble without ornament. But upon its face a Jew, now forgotten and dead, had put this part of himself into these words that now fell under David’s eyes:

  Worship is to honor Heaven, and righteousness is to follow the ancestors. But the human mind has always existed before worship and righteousness.

  The wickedness in these last words shook the soul of David as though he had heard laughter in this sacred place. Some old Jew whose blood was mixed too strongly with ribald Chinese blood had written those words and had commanded them to be carved upon stone and set even into the synagogue! David laughed aloud, and he was not able to keep back his laughter.

  The Rabbi heard it and was shocked. “Why do you laugh?” he demanded, and his voice was very sharp.

  “Father,” David said honestly, “I see something that makes me laugh.”

  “Give me back the Torah!” the Rabbi said angrily.

  “Forgive me,” David said.

  “May the Lord forgive you!” the Rabbi retorted. He took the Torah from David’s hand and fastened it into the case and put it into its place in the Ark. He felt confused and wounded. All his ecstasy was stopped, giddiness seized him, and he leaned upon the chair.

  “Leave me,” he said shortly to David. “I will pray for a while.”

  “Shall I not wait for you?” David asked, ashamed but still smiling.

  “I will find the way alone,” the Rabbi said, and so stern was his voice and look that David left him.

  A clear cool wind swept through the synagogue as David walked away, and he breathed it in. He was dazed by the sudden change in the air, in himself, and he scarcely knew what had happened. The human mind has always existed before worship and righteousness—the human mind, his mind! He stood at the gate of the synagogue, at the top of the steps, and his spirit, held taut and high for so many days, was suddenly loosed like a stone from a sling. The storm had passed over the city and the air was cool and bright, the sun was shining down on the wet roofs and upon the wet stones of the streets, and the people looked gay and cheerful and busy.

  At this moment as the sun poured into the streets after the storm he chanced to see Kung Chen. The merchant had been held in the teashop by the rain beyond his usual hour for drinking his mid-morning tea, and now he was choosing his path over the wet cobblestones toward his countinghouse. He was his usual calm and satisfied self, and in the new cool air his summer robe of cream-colored silk was bright and his black silk shoes were spotless.
In the collar of his robe he carried his folded black fan, and his dark hair was combed smoothly back from his shaven forehead and braided in a queue with a black silk tasseled cord. A handsomer man of his age could not have been found in the city, or one more pleasant to look upon. His all-seeing eyes fell upon David and he paused to call his name.

  “How is my elder brother, your father?” Kung Chen inquired.

  “Sir, I have not seen my father this morning,” David replied. He ran down the steps, drawn to Kung Chen as inevitably as a child is drawn to a smiling and cheerful adult. Indeed, it was comforting to allow himself to feel young and even childish before this powerful and yet kindly man. In these days when he had been so closely with the Rabbi he had been stretched and lifted beyond himself.

  “Have you been worshiping your god?” Kung Chen asked in the same voice that he might have used in asking if David had been to a theater.

  “The Rabbi has been teaching me,” David replied.

  Kung Chen hesitated. Then he said in a voice of curiosity, “I have always wanted to see inside your temple, but I suppose it would not be allowed.”

  “Why not?” David replied. “If it is your wish, please come in now.”

  He had no desire to return to the synagogue, and yet he was glad of a reason to stay with Kung Chen, and so half proudly he led the way up the steps again, and the old gateman, looking doubtful, opened the wide doors and let them pass in.

  How different did the synagogue now look! The sun was pouring down upon it out of a bright sky, and Kung Chen did not feel fear or reverence but only courtesy. He looked at everything with lively eyes and he read the inscriptions in a loud cheerful voice, approving all.